New art exhibit at Atelier Newport explores schisms of our culture

Monday

NEWPORT — Jason Chase is one of 22 artists exhibiting a total of 84 pieces in a new exhibit called "Divided Mind," which explores the spirit of the current times with an emphasis on divisiveness.

In one work, Chase, of Somerville, Massachusetts, painted a glass vodka bottle shaped like an AK-47 against a background of “Everready” batteries. In another, he painted a tequila bottle shaped like a 9mm pistol. His girlfriend brought the bottle back from Mexico.

“The paintings are not meant to be pro-gun or anti-gun,” Chase said. “My paintings can be seen from both sides. I like to target practice, but what a divisive issue our use of guns is.”

Bobbi Lemmons, creative director for Atelier Newport, put together the exhibit now on display in the gallery at 200 Bellevue Ave., where an opening reception was held Sunday afternoon.

“This all kicked up when President Trump was meeting with North Korea dictator Kim Jong-Un in Singapore,” Lemmons said. “I felt like the country is filled with divisiveness and frustration. But it’s not helpful to just be angry — you have to have a voice.”

One of the artists, Doug DeLuca of Washington, D.C., created a white American flag using pages from The New York Times that are embedded below beeswax colored by white pigment.

“It’s the state of the union, how ubiquitous the news is,” he said. “The news can create negativity and a sense of chaos. My work is a calling for a truce, to be as peaceful as we can be.”

His portrayals of the flag do not stand on either side of the political spectrum, DeLuca said.

“Patriotism can go both ways,” he said. “It’s such a crazy time. Now, more than ever, we all have to stand true for what our flag stands for.”

Another of his paintings is entitled “Heal,” which portrays a large Band-Aid on top of the American flag.

“Jasper Johns did a white flag long ago [1955],” Lemmons said. “Doug is taking an idea and moving it forward. We’re dealing with black-and-white issues now.”

David Barnes, a Newport artist, has eight pieces in the show.

“My work is linked with the contemporary social mindset, the zeitgeist of the times,” he said. “People have a feeling the other shoe is going to drop. That sense of pending danger is in a lot of my paintings.”

One painting on display shows a hooded character with a backpack, all in black.

“It could be a guy with a bomb or a neighborhood kid wearing a hoodie,” Barnes said. “It could be threatening or could be nonthreatening.”

He created the painting after the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

“It’s the aesthetic of uncertainty, which is how the country is now,” he said.

One of the artists, Gayle Mandle of New Bedford, Massachusetts, lived for three years in Qatar and her paintings in the exhibition illustrate her time in the Middle East.

One painting is called “What After Oil” and is a layered collage and oil paint on canvas. There is a feeling of desolation in the work.

Lemmons said a work by artist Hannah Stahl of Brooklyn was her inspiration for the exhibit. Stahl grew up in Rhode Island and went to school in Providence. Her parents live in Jamestown.

The painting is of two men in suits, but instead of a head coming out of each suit, it is the top of a tree.

“It was the irony of it,” Lemmons said. “We are trying to grow and grow as a global community, but what direction are we heading in? I might have intended the exhibit to be more subtle than it turned out to be.”

“People are always talking about growth,” Stahl said. “But it’s cancerous how we are living now with our discordant relationship with nature.”

She has a set of three paintings showing an apparent scene from nature, but the scene is “a Disney idea of nature,” she said.

Among the green foliage are a deflated balloon, discarded candy wrappers, extinguished candles and an unwrapped gift.

“The endless party of capitalism will come to an end, I believe,” Stahl said.

Lee Valentini of Providence, owner of the gallery, funded the exhibit Lemmons put together with assistance from Michelle Maker Palmieri.

“I leave the creative element to Bobbi and Michelle,” Valentini said at the reception. “I’m interested in the educational element. People come to an event like this and meet the artists. The artists explain their history, inspiration and what they are doing. Art is visual, but people like to hear a visual artist explain what’s behind a piece.”

The works will be displayed at Atelier Newport until July 29, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sundays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

sflynn@newportri.com

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